Former Rhode Island State Representative David Segal, now executive director of civil liberties and government reform group Demand Progress, is in the thick of a push to get the Republican and Democratic parties to make Internet freedom a plank in their official platforms.

Demand Progress was a key player in the Internet revolt that killed the SOPA and PIPA bills, which were designed to clamp down on Internet piracy of movies, music, and pharmaceuticals.

In February, when I asked Senator Sheldon Whitehouse if his "Buffett Rule" bill raising taxes on the wealthy was a mere political stunt, he insisted that he had a real plan for passage. One element of that plan: bring up the legislation for a vote over and over again, as a way to pressure the Republicans into passage. The method, he said, had been pivotal to passage of the financial reform bill last year.

The netroots story can seem so, well, 2006. But this is actually a remarkably fertile time for online activism. Witness the Internet's January revolt against the SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy bills, the web-based protest against the Susan G. Komen foundation, and the Kony 2012 video (see my recent piece "Game Change?")

Headed to Netroots Nation? Here's are five bars, restaurants, and cafes to check out within walking distance of the Rhode Island Convention Center. Oh, and if you want to sound like a local, it's "DownCity," not "downtown."

Netroots Nation, the lefty bloggers' conference, is coming to Providence next weekend. And we've got our big preview issue out today. My colleague David Bernstein asks whether the netroots can beat the corporate money flooding the 2012 elections, post-Citizens United. And with Occupy set to be a major topic of conversation, Chris Faraone looks at the police crackdown on reporters covering lefty protest.

Occupy Providence is planning to "occupy the sidewalk" outside the coming Netroots Nation conference, June 7-10. The action is not meant as a protest against the event, but as a protest against economic injustice; indeed, the Occupyers and the lefty bloggers who populate the netroots are largely simpatico on this and other issues.

Keith Olbermann may have pulled out of Netroots Nation, the lefty blogger's conference coming to Providence June 7-10. But organizers can claim another progressive media star: New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. Mary Rickles, communications coordinator for the event, passed along the word today. More big names to be confirmed in the coming days, she says.

Keith Olbermann, who was scheduled to speak at the Netroots Nation conference in Providence in a couple of weeks, shant be appearing. This is one gig, though, from which he wasn't fired. Olbermann's explanation, via DailyKos:

I regret to tell you that I'm going to have to miss Netroots Nation.

I need to have surgery - fortunately, minor surgery - and the best
guy in the world on this says we shouldn't wait beyond next week.